Online Public Relations Thoughts

Daily entries on Public Relations and communications ideas and trends

Friday, May 22, 2020

How Does This Happen?

Volkswagen is apologizing for a racist ad posted online. The commercial showed a black man looking at one of its cars and a giant white hand flicking the black man away and into a restaurant called the "Little Colonist" in French. It is an insensitive production at its core and someone in the ad agency or in Volkswagen's management should have caught it from the pencil stage. They didn't, which speaks volumes about the company and its vendors. The apology rings hollow. Someone in the creative crew should take a fall, if management doesn't want to own up to the ugliness of it. It's well past the time that such advertisements should be produced.